muscovy

Today I relaxed, after a rather longish and busy week. I pondered Christmas card designs, with good success, but did not complete the card as yet. I will have it done and mailed by next weekend, though, which means my foreign friends may have it by Old Christmas, anyway. I picked up the Bridget Jones sequel in hardcover at Good Will, as I figure that I'll enjoy that more than the sequel movie. I ate Indian buffet while enjoying Geek Love, which akliber sent me some weeks ago. I went to Bethany Lakes Park, here in Allen, and walked around the small pond/lakes. Tons of wild ducks and herons joined the domestic ducks and geese in the ponds. I like the ducks with the mottled faces, which I think are called muscovy ducks, although I feel hesitation as I say that, as I would hate if muscovy turned out to be a sauce or a method of preparation. </i>"The Service of Man"</i>indeed. I love the little seed pods on the cedars planted in the park. We are getting very late Fall color here, which is a rare but wonderful thing. Usually,all the trees "turn" on their own schedule, so that color is sporadic. But this cold snap sent several trees into color, and although it's not New England, we count our scenic blessings in north Texas as we find them.

I drove to Lake Lavon, and sat in my car, and stared out across the face of the water.I listened to the radio program Selected Shorts, in which an actor read the Nathaniel Hawthorne story about the people buried by the mountain. I saw something cross my way, and wondered if it were rabbit or illusion.

I heard yesterday from a fellow with whom I e mailed back and forth to help with some advice four years ago after he contacted me off a message board while he was trying to decide to leave science for patent law. Now he's finished with Cornell Law School, and at a huge firm in Boston. It's fun to see someone go from the brink of decision through to achievement. I like having a "long lens" in life--I see success in the future, and not just darkness ahead. I have yet to add more names to my work Christmas card list, to order Christmas gifts for two Arkansas nephews, and to get a bit of work done on this week's deadline. But I needed the rest today.